Beauty
by emberin
Summary: One-shot. What is beauty? When Ruki faces this question, she finds the answer to more than she bargained for.


Beauty

Frankly, my first venture into Digimon was not that pleasant. It screamed 'OOC' on it. Somewhere in the transition plot and character did not work… so this is my experiment with Ruki and my style of writing. Do not hesitate to tell me if it's OOC… I have ideas for Digimon fanfiction but I don't want to write them if the characters are not in character.

I dedicate this to my faithful friend, KatYoukai, who read this and gave me pointers. Thanks for being so patient with me when I was getting frustrated.

DISCLAIMER: I, EmbeRin, do not own the characters of Digimon, and never will, so don't sue me.

* * *

Beauty.

Her mother's idea: dresses, frills, lace. Physical embodiments of beauty.

Her idea: …

That's what she was trying to figure out.

_This has got to be one of the stupidest assignments I've ever been given… what kind of teacher gives an assignment on figuring out 'the facets of beauty'? I could come up with ten other things that would be so much better than this junk. _

Ruki sat at her table, trying to figure out the homework given to her. Defining 'beauty'… she didn't think that a ten-year old girl in any other school would be doing this, she'd give her teacher that much. And in addition, she had to compare it to what she perceived as someone else's sense by their behaviour?

She simply picked her mother because it was simple to assume what her sense of beauty was. She had better things to do than this rubbish, and she wasn't going to waste her time.

_What is beauty? _she wrote on the paper in front of her.

Frankly, she didn't know. But she definitely didn't think that bows and pink things were any sort of pretty. She couldn't think of anything that was pretty out of those things.

In which case she was thinking along the same wavelength as her mother, with the same restrictions on what was 'beauty'.

_I am not going to accept that fact!_

There was no way that she, Ruki, was anything like her mother. _All she cares about is her looks! _

Perhaps Ruki had learnt better. Her mother did care about her. She was worried sick when she left for the digital world. To be honest, Ruki was never truly sure if she truly had meant anything to her mother until she had to leave. Before, she didn't even know if she cared.

But still…

Ruki wracked her brain for ideas. She had honestly never thought about such things – she had always associated the word 'beauty' with things that her mother adored, simply because the word 'beauty' was so often used to describe things her mother found pretty. Trivial things, things that didn't matter to Ruki.

She remembered that time when she had said to Renamon that the most beautiful thing was seeing her stand heroically in the moonlight. Was heroism beautiful? That depended if the heroine was macho or not. Macho people were just annoying, as well as those who pretended to be so good. Ruki could immediately call up one person who fit those descriptions.

_Ugh._

Well, Ruki was not one to be defeated by one lousy piece of homework. She'd finish it. No piece of paper was going to knock her off.

… _but maybe I should take a walk first.

* * *

_

Walking along the streets of Shinjuku, Ruki decided to stop by some of the places that she had battled alongside Renamon, just to give her some inspiration. Renamon was a starting point, but it wasn't enough. Besides, no teacher at school would be crazy enough to accept it as an answer. The D-Reaper incident had only been a few months ago.

She stopped by the tunnel, the water tunnel where Yuggoth had first launched and almost deleted Guilmon. She didn't remember why she had helped Takato and Jenrya. Back then, it was just for adventure, for another opportunity to fight against some enemy. Then everything escalated with the Devas and Culumon, and it landed her in the middle of a mess that she might have used to love being in – there were so many opportunities for her and Renamon to get stronger.

Seeing the Devas wreck the city was when she truly started to worry about her mother.

"Fancy seeing you here," a voice said from behind her. Ruki turned around. It was Jenrya, but now that Terriermon was gone, it looked like he was missing something whenever Ruki looked at him.

"Hey."

"Seems like you're thinking about something."

"… yeah, I am. What do you think is beautiful?"

Jenrya seemed taken aback.

"Well, I didn't expect that one out of you. Why do you want to know?"

"Some stupid homework. Are you going to answer me?"

There was a moment's silence as Jenrya looked up into the sky, as though he was pondering the thought over in his head, as was typical of him.

"… Nature is beautiful, I guess…"

Ruki looked around. In a city full of buildings, parks were a place of refuge. But then again, Ruki never really appreciated nature because she had a garden in her house. It wasn't what she was looking for, so she'd have to keep looking.

"Thanks anyways. I guess I'd better go."

Ruki then turned and left, leaving Jenrya to wonder what kind of assignment it was.

* * *

Another chance encounter had her meet Takato at Shinjuku Park. Led on by Jenrya's proposal, she had gone to the park for inspiration when she ran into the gogglehead. _He still wears his goggles…_ Ruki rolled her eyes at the thought.

"Oh, hi, Ruki. What're you doing here?"

"None of your business," Ruki began, but seeing Takato's face, she sighed. "Well, if you have to know… I'm trying to think of something for my assignment."

"Oh. Homework. Well, I'm no help then," Takato replied, laughing sheepishly.

"… what do you think is beautiful?"

"Huh? You going to dress up for your mom or something?"

"No, gogglehead," Ruki snapped back. "I asked what YOU thought was beautiful."

"Well, I don't usually use the word… it sounds kinda girly," he replied, cringing from Ruki's harsh response. "Uh… Juri once told me Guilmon looked cute. Would he count?"

"… forget it," Ruki said, turning to leave.

"Wait," Takato said.

"What now?"

"Well… I thought that being able to fight alongside Guilmon was beautiful," he said quietly. "But then, he's gone…"

Lacking words to say, be they her typical snappish remarks or her attempts at comforting words, Ruki left, leaving Takato to reminisce over Guilmon.

* * *

Hirokazu and Kenta weren't the biggest help either when she ran into them.

"You want to know what's beautiful?" Hirokazu began. "Seeing you bow down to my awesome glory would be beautiful!"

"Yeah!" Kenta added.

"Oh, please," Ruki said, rolling her eyes. "Why did I even bother to ask your opinions?"

"Hey! You take that back!" was the twinned reply.

Ruki decided that any further argument against those two would be futile and a waste of her breath. She looked up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set. She'd never find an answer at this rate. Maybe it would be better if she just went home and sat on the thought.

* * *

Taking a rest on a bench, Ruki looked at the sun. It was resting on the horizon, casting its orange and red rays across the darkening sky. Was that beautiful? She looked at the part of the sky where it was already dark and the street lights were all on. Was that display of lights beautiful?

"Hi, Ruki!"

It was Juri, carrying some bags. Groceries, it appeared to be.

"Oh. Hey, Juri."

"Something seems wrong," Juri commented. "Is something bothering you?" As if to emphasize her thought, she pulled out her sock puppet and added a "Ruff!" to the end of her question.

_Well, Juri is a girl. Maybe she can help me._

"Juri, what do you think is beautiful?" Ruki asked.

"Beautiful…" Juri repeated the word, as though she was sinking into memory. "Well, if you have to know… when Leomon died, he said to me, 'You have a lion's heart.' I thought that his courage… when he was with me, that it was beautiful. And even when he's not here any more, a part of him will always be with me. I think that's beautiful."

Ruki nodded. _Courage…_ Maybe this could get her somewhere.

"Oh, I'd better go," Juri said suddenly. "My parents will be expecting these…" Grabbing her bags, Juri left for her home. The sun was almost gone, and Ruki decided it would best if she did the same. The whole time home, she thought of what Juri – no, what everyone had said.

_Courage… is beautiful…

* * *

_

"Why, Miss Makino, I was very impressed with your assignment," the teacher said in class the next day. "It was quite deep and meaningful. Would you care to share your views with everyone else in the class?"

Reluctantly, Ruki stood up. She needed to only glance at the paper once – she had memorized the report by heart. Looking at the teacher, Ruki guessed that the teacher hadn't expected her to really read the assignment.

"What is beauty?" she began.

"Beauty is a word used to describe something when one finds it awe-inspiring. Amazing. Something that triggers their thoughts of enjoyment and delight. So when everyone sees my mother in her dresses and modelling, they think she is beautiful. Physically.

"But beauty can mean so much more than how something or someone looks. It can be something that a person does that makes you think that he or she is beautiful. Qualities of a person can be beautiful. Love, for example. Courage, for another.

"Maybe a person doesn't realize beauty when he or she first sees it. Maybe that person has to go through some experience or another to make him or her realize that whatever they had seen before really was beautiful. Maybe it takes time for a person to appreciate the beauty of the object or person.

"When I first thought of my mother, I could only see the first layer of her, the one that everyone sees. The model. She was beautiful to a lot of people, but she wasn't beautiful to me. I don't like dresses, and I don't like frills. I couldn't understand what people saw in her. But it took me a long time to realize that she cared for me, and not just her job. In her asking me to wear those dresses, she just wanted to share what she thought was beautiful with me.

"In that sense, my mother really is a beautiful person."

When Ruki finished, the room was silent. No one could seem to believe that those words had come out of Ruki's mouth. Everyone in the room knew that Ruki was a tomboy. Sure, they didn't know the family situation, but in one assignment, Ruki had told all.

Ruki herself couldn't believe it. Why did she do that?

She needed a vent. She wanted to get a chance to tell her mother that she really did care about her too. It was like saving the world from the D-Reaper wasn't enough. She really needed something to tell her mother 'thank you' for the first time in her ten years.

So maybe Ruki couldn't tell her mother yet because she was off on another photo shoot. She would tell her. Maybe their idea of beauty wasn't the same, but she had learned something very important.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

* * *

Like I said before, please tell me what you think of this story. This is a test to see if I can pull off a decent Ruki and I would deeply appreciate comments.

-EmbeRin


End file.
